...A succinct definition of capitalism is: "An economic system by which ownership of capital or wealth, the production and distribution of goods, and the rewards of labor, are entrusted to and effected by, private enterprise. (The Reader's Digest Great Encyclopedic Dictionary, 1964, p.136) Another more comprehensive view of capitalism is the following. ...an economic or socio-economic system in which the means of production are overwhelmingly privately owned and operated for profit, decisions regarding investment of capital are made privately, and where production, distribution, and the prices of goods, services, and labor are affected by the forces of supply and demand. (Capitalism: Wikipedia) Both the above definitions posit a number of central factors that are prominent in the history of capitalism. The first and most obvious aspect of the capitalistic ethos is the concept of personal profit. This aspect is aligned with the central concept of private ownership and the determinations of the labor market. The roots of the theory of capital as we knew it today evolved during the 18th and 19th centuries and were formed primarily in the context of the industrial revolution and European imperialism. (Capitalism: Wikipedia) There are various theories about the history and emergence of capitalism. One of these, which has proven to be controversial, is the view that there are three periods of capitalism known as early, middle, and late periods. Other theories of the historic evolution...
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...foreignaffairs.com/reviews/review-essay/2015-04-20/what-causedcapitalism What Caused Capitalism? Assessing the Roles of the West and the Rest By Jeremy Adelman The Cambridge History of Capitalism, 2 vols. EDITED BY LARRY NEAL AND JEFFREY G. WILLIAMSON. Cambridge University Press, 2014, 1,205 pp. $260.00. The Enlightened Economy: An Economic History of Britain, 1700–1850 BY JOEL MOKYR. Yale University Press, 2012, 550 pp. $35.00. Empire of Cotton: A Global History BY SVEN BECKERT. Knopf, 2014, 615 pp. $35.00. Once upon a time, smart people thought the world was flat. As globalization took off, economists pointed to spreading market forces that allowed consumers to buy similar things for the same prices around the world. Others invoked the expansion of liberalism and democracy after the Cold War. For a while, it seemed as if the West’s political and economic ways really had won out. But the euphoric days of flat talk now seem like a bygone era, replaced by gloom and anxiety. The economic shock of 2008, the United States’ political paralysis, Europe’s financial quagmires, the dashed dreams of the Arab Spring, and the specter of competition from illiberal capitalist countries such as China have doused enthusiasm about the West’s destiny. Once seen as a model for “the rest,” the West is now in question. Even the erstwhile booster Francis Fukuyama has seen the dark, warning in his recent twovolume history of political order that the future may not lie with the places that brought...
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...Adrienne Korson Marxism: For and Against Marxism is essentially a critique of Capitalism. In order to understand Marxism, one needs to evaluate the history of Marxism. Heilbroner described Marxism as being “inescapable” (Heilbroner, 15). Marxism is credited with the contribution for uncovering an unsuspected level of reality beneath the surface of capitalism. His mode of inquiry for uncovering the hidden reality of capitalism is through his own invented process of socioanalysis. Because of Marx’s legacy of revealing the reality of capitalism, Heilbroner compares him to Freud and Plato, all whose works are inescapable for the truths they have unveiled. Freud and Plato both unveiled hidden realities. Marx shared a further similarity in the sense that his “combination of insight and method permanently altered the manner in which reality would thereafter be perceived” (Heilbroner, 17). Marx’s works in his book Capital is still more relevant today than Adam Smith’s renowned work Wealth of Nations. Marx‘s book placed importance on technology and crises and social tension, and more importantly, undertakes the task of critiquing the political economy. However, the problem of Marxism is within trying to define it. Heilbroner believes that there exists a set of premises that can assist in defining Marxist thought, “so that any analysis that contains these premises can be properly classified as Marxist” (Heilbroner, 20). There are four main premises as described by Heilbroner; the...
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...Nowadays our society has a huge interest in American culture, the culture of progress, money and Capitalism. American culture, and western culture in general, may be characterized as the culture of Capitalism, or more specifically consumer Capitalism, and American society may be characterized as the society of perpetual growth. The following discussion treats exactly the topic of this thesis. The first part deals with Capitalism and the second one with consumerism. For most of us, American culture can’t be imagined without Capitalism, and it seems we got here on a way as determined as that of a tossed baseball. We are taught and come to believe that the head of the American economy is capitalist. It’s time to break out of that way of thinking. Let’s briefly think of the history of American Capitalism, only to get us out of this habit of thinking. When did American Capitalism begin? It is easy to forget that capitalism was born not so long ago, in the 19th century, when the Industrial Revolution took place, and entrepreneurs were creating new industries and wealth. In other words, capitalism came to be a “big thing” once it was already there. Capitalism effects people and created a consumerist society. Consumerist societies live by the influence of advertisements, and often buy things they do not need, and in most cases, they cannot afford it. This, in turn, leads to greater economic inequality, consumerists have a feeling of unfulfilled due to spending a lot of money yet having...
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...History of Slavery in the United States Click Link Below To Buy: http://hwcampus.com/shop/history-of-slavery-in-the-united-states/ Investigate the history of slavery and discuss the ways in which this history impacts contemporary society. Thesis and Introduction Slavery in America How and when did Slavery Start in America? Who were slaves? Where did they come from? How were slaves treated? What where their livingConditions? Who owned slaves? Why did they own slaves? What was the social status of some one who ownedslaves? Capitalism in America How and when did Capitalism start in America? Who does Capitalism benefit? How does Capitalism affect rich people? How does Capitalism affect poor people? Who Controls Capitalism? What is the Social Status of the people who control Capitalism? Healthcare and Education in America Healthcare compared between Slaves and Slave Owners Healthcare compared between Modern day Rich people and Poor People What type of education was available for Slaves and Slave owners? What type of education and school system is available for rich and poor people? Religion Did Slaves have their own religion prior to slavery? What did Slave Masters do with religion of their slaves? Slavemasters took their own religion and taught it to their slaves. Catholic religion is the number one religion in the world How popular is the Catholic religion with in rich and poor communities ? Conclusion Slavery is live ad well in today’s...
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...Capitalism vs. Socialism CAPITALISM HISTORY The history of capitalism can be traced back to early forms of merchant capitalism practiced in Western Europe during the Middle Ages,[1] though many economic historians consider the Netherlands as the first thoroughly capitalist country. In Early modern Europe it featured the wealthiest trading city (Amsterdam) and the first full-time stock exchange. The inventiveness of the traders led to insurance and retirement funds as well along with much less benign phenomena such as the boom-bust cycle, the world's first asset-inflation bubble, the tulip mania of 1636–1637, and according to Murray Sayle, the world's first bear raider – Isaac le Maire, who in 1607 forced prices down by dumping stock and then buying it back at a discount.[2] Over the course of the past five hundred years, capital has been accumulated by a variety of different methods, in a variety of scales, and associated with a great deal of variation in the concentration of economic power and wealth.[3] Much of the history of the past five hundred years is concerned with the development of capitalism in its various forms, its condemnation and rejection, particularly by socialists, and its defense, mainly by conservatives and libertarians. PRE-HISTORY OF CAPITALISM The Crisis of the 14th century and the "pre-history of capitalism" According to some historians, the modern capitalist system has its origin in the "crisis of the fourteenth century," a conflict between...
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...Marx argue that capitalism was doomed to collapse? Marx saw capitalism as a progressive historical stage that would eventually stagnate due to internal contradictions and be followed by socialism. Therefore Marx argued that capitalism was doomed. One of Marx’s most powerful ideas was his idea of ‘false consciousness’s’. He believed that everyone in the capitalist society was under false consciousness, meaning that they believed themselves to be free, but in fact the truth was opposite to this. He believed that capitalism actually led to a significant loss of political, democratic and economic power for the vast majority of citizens in the society. He believed that the ‘Power Elite’ took advantage of their position to take money away from hard working citizens to spend it on what they wanted to spend it on all in the name of ‘tax’ and ‘capitalist democracy’, and that capitalism and its evil ways had got the people to think that they are free, when in fact this couldn’t be further from the truth, they are limited excessively by the rules of capitalism and therefore Marx believed that if false consciousness could be destroyed then people would ‘wake up’ and realise the evils of capitalism and socialism would be the answer. Socialists would define capital as a ‘social, economic relation’ between people’, rather than a ‘social, economic relation’ between people and things. In this sense they seek to abolish capital. They believe that because of this fact capitalism generates a huge...
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...Schumpeter’s (1883-1950) encyclopedic History of Economic Analysis, Schumpeter began by proclaiming that histories of economics should confine themselves to economic analysis, which he defined as “the analytic or scientific aspects of economic thought" (1954: 1). Schumpeter then proceeded to ignore his own edict, for over 1000 small-print pages. Having preached analysis-only Schumpeter practiced more ecumenically, weaving together intellectual history, biography, and economic sociology. Indeed, Schumpeter spent most of his last decade writing the 800,000 words of the ferociously erudite History, and thereby failing to complete a long-planned work of economic analysis. Thomas McCraw’s splendid new book brilliantly illuminates this Schumpeterian paradox, and the many others that made Schumpeter, as Phillip Mirowski put it, “a living, breathing contradiction” (1994: 5). Prophet of Innovation is not just a beautifully drawn portrait of Schumpeter’s life and times, it is also a distinguished business historian’s meditation on the two opposed cultures of political economy post-1870: history and theory. The Prophet of Innovation, among its other accomplishments, tells the story of how a great and productive intellect wrestled with the two-cultures problem in political economy. In the work of Schumpeter, McCraw finds the very personification of political economy’s struggle between history and theory. Just as Schumpeter’s work personifies the roles for history and theory in economics, so too...
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...Marxism and Social Movements Marxism is a body of theory that was developed from and crafted for social movements. Marxist theory in the twentieth century was linked to the development of oppositional political projects across the world. There were a range of revolutionary struggles against imperialist wars and capitalism. The First World War divided the forces of socialism, with those who were to become social democrats supporting the mass slaughter of the War. Marxism rested on a proposition and a wager. The proposition is that the core problem facing popular movements in the present time is the capitalist system. The wager is that the working class is capable of transforming itself through collective action and organization to the point where it can break capitalism apart and lay out foundations of a new cooperative world community. The proposition and wager provided Marxism with a standard that assessed the whole array of resistance of capitalist power. In Marxist theory, the issue of ‘replacement power’ focuses on the necessity and not simply taking over the state but reorganizing it in ways that were unthinkable. This book addressed broad theoretical questions while critiquing academic social movement theory and interrogating what a Marxist theory of social movements might involve. This book examined how movements actually work, explored the political questions that confront movement participants, and argued understanding of how movements developed. The last part of...
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...History of Slavery in the United States Click Link Below To Buy: http://hwcampus.com/shop/history-of-slavery-in-the-united-states/ Investigate the history of slavery and discuss the ways in which this history impacts contemporary society. Thesis and Introduction Slavery in America How and when did Slavery Start in America? Who were slaves? Where did they come from? How were slaves treated? What where their livingConditions? Who owned slaves? Why did they own slaves? What was the social status of some one who ownedslaves? Capitalism in America How and when did Capitalism start in America? Who does Capitalism benefit? How does Capitalism affect rich people? How does Capitalism affect poor people? Who Controls Capitalism? What is the Social Status of the people who control Capitalism? Healthcare and Education in America Healthcare compared between Slaves and Slave Owners Healthcare compared between Modern day Rich people and Poor People What type of education was available for Slaves and Slave owners? What type of education and school system is available for rich and poor people? Religion Did Slaves have their own religion prior to slavery? What did Slave Masters do with religion of their slaves? Slavemasters took their own religion and taught it to their slaves. Catholic religion is the number one religion in the world How popular is the Catholic religion with in rich and poor communities ? Conclusion Slavery is live ad well in today’s...
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...Karl Marx states capitalism distorts human’s relationships with the environment. Over two centuries later, such a situation is apparent in the Green Revolution in Amazon. In fact, capitalism distorts human nature and welfare (Rizer 2011). Marx theory on capitalism effects on the environment explains the environmental crisis of the Green Revolution. Aristotle is a materialist (Rist 1996). Aristotle theory on science separates into two categories which are functional developmental essentialism and property essentialist (Rist 1997). The two parts of the essentialism is known as the Natural Slate Model. For essentialism, diversity is unimportant only the ideal is important (McLaughlin 2015). Aristotle theory of progress states an interfering force cause deviation from the linear view of time. Christians explanation for deviation was effect of God and interbreeding (Greenwood 1984). The Enlightenment cause people to believe the ideology of progress was not definite and based on God or any super nature force. The enlightenment produced a great thinker Hegel, and most importantly Hegel heavily influence Marx’s view on history. Hegel believe that history is composed of clash of ideas called called the thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. The thesis and antithesis leads to a synthesis. Marx views the whole of history as class struggle. Marx theory of human nature was based on critique of Hegel, which states changes in human life are beyond human control and humans are abstract individuals...
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...Capitalism, as one of the many ideologies that has existed in history, has evolved over time and is expected to continue to evolve in the dynamic complexities of our economic interactions. According to the author, capitalism is an economic system in which the means of goods and production are owned by a small group of people, private individuals and business owners, and they exchange goods and services through a complex network of prices and markets. Capitalism has its roots in Europe because of the rapid development of the European trade and prosperity in the early modern period. By the nineteenth century, capitalism evolved and reached its peak, then it was spread all over the world especially the United States. Based on their social mentality and historical economic conditions, the...
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...By the time 1750 came around, American was experiencing what is known as the First Industrial Revolution (circa 1780-1850). It is hard now to fathom the idea of having to function economically without the use of factories, factory machines, and factory workers. By history shifting from the cottage industry, traditional agriculture, and manual labor into a factory-based manufacturing type systems made of complex machinery, constant technological expansion, and new energy sources and advanced in transportation, we evolved. The entire world evolved, soon to rely on industries to survive. For hundreds of years, life was focused on agriculture. Most people lived in countries because city development was minimal. Most families farmed their own land and hand-made all necessities they needed, including farm tools, clothing, furniture and traded for things they could not develop on their own. Some trade items became more demanding such as thread developed on a spinning wheel or textiles being developed by hand on a weaving loom. This demand is what began the need for more products for more profit. (Riane Eisler (2007)). A chain of inventions in Great Britain was created to develop an increase in the production of manufactured goods. People all over the country began to develop the need for more complex machinery that could complete the task quicker and more efficiently that human manual labor could provide by itself. Two significant rises of the Industrial Revolution are...
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...Throughout history, there were many oppressive systems so the elites can keep the masses in check. They include feudalism, which ties and forces peasants to work on a piece of land, slavery which turns people into property, and recently, capitalism. Capitalism is a system where trade and industry is in the hands of private owners and not the state.Although people claim that capitalism gives people more freedom over their wealth, it is one of the many forms of oppression as it is the cause of exploitation of labour and resources. Capitalism leads to the exploitation of human resources. According to David William Pear, Henry Kissinger states that, “Who controls the food supply controls the people; who controls the energy can control whole...
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...of the capitalist system Throughout history of capitalism, there has been one persistent criticism. The whole system seems to be based on selfishness the more one works, the more one prospers. If one is unable to work, the system seems to have no answer to his or her problems. Furthermore, there does not seem to be any moral or spiritual foundation to the system. Where do businesses get their values? What about concepts such as sharing, helping neighbors, and protecting the environment? It is important to make a distinction between plain capitalism and democratic capitalism. Democratic capitalism is a system based on three components: (1) free enterprise; that is, freedom to own your own businesses and farms and freedom to keep the profits, (2) a freely elected government that has internal checks and balances, and (3) moral, ethical, and spiritual values that are part of the very fabric of the country and the business system. Plain capitalism is a system where there is free enterprise, but no freely elected government and no foundation of moral, ethical, and spiritual values. There are several “capitalist” countries headed by rightwing dictators that do not have democratic capitalism and do not have the relative prosperity and social justice that we have in the United States. Let’s explore democratic capitalism in more detail so that you can understand how the system works. One of the most important elements of democratic capitalism is its moral and spiritual base. When the...
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